departure from the
station becomes known, sorting, repairing, and supplementing your camp
kit, fitting out yourself, your servant, and your horse with warm
clothing--these and countless other matters filled to the brim those
forty-eight hours.

At last I was in the train for Calcutta. I met two major-generals of my
acquaintance at different points during the journey. They both
congratulated me warmly on the quest upon which I was going, each
independently remarking, not upon the unexampled professional experience
that I was likely to acquire, but on the fact that Tibet was an A1 place
for curios! Nice and human of them, I thought, to put that first! One
of them, I fear, was rather incommoded by the numerous articles of kit
which I had with me in the carriage, and which overflowed somewhat into
his portion of it. He was, I knew, a great authority on the scientific
reduction of transport, and, when I apologised somewhat sheepishly for
crowding him, made some grim remark about the liberal scale of baggage
per officer that was doubtless being allowed to us; so I had to impress
upon him that I stood an even chance of being kept at the base, and so
had to be prepared for all emergencies, even a ten days' leave to
Darjiling. Whereat he smiled more grimly than ever.

Don't travel from Northern India to Calcutta in May, if you can help it.
It is not very hot when you start, but every mile you travel you find it
growing hotter. You get baked as you traverse the dry plains of the
United Provinces, you get fried as you reach a greasier climate further
South, and in the humid atmosphere of Lower Bengal the sensation is
that of being boiled. You get out of the train in Howrah station at
Calcutta done all to shreds.

After a few hours in Calcutta I took the Darjiling mail train which was
due the following morning at Siliguri, the latter being the base of the
Tibet Expedition. In the train I was accompanied by a throng of Calcutta
folk going up to Darjiling for their 'week-end.' Calcutta, apart from
other attributes, is a great emporium of drapery and millinery goods,
and it was quite natural to find myself sharing a carriage with a
gentleman who in the course of conversation revealed himself as the head
of a large firm of haberdashers. He was a delightful travelling
companion, and regaled me with tales illustrative of the humorous side
of his business. He was at his best when describing his most successful
corset fitter, a damsel